Saturday, March 01, 2008

Cranmer’s Pulpit No. X

The shortest month of the year has been a record month for Cranmer, registering 25,771 unique visitors to his world-renowned blog of intelligent erudite comment upon matters religio-political, which increasingly appears to embrace all things religious or political. This month included a record day (8th February with 2109 unique visitors) thanks to the Shari’a insights of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. For the statistically minded, February's figures represent a colossal 29% increase on January, and establish 6 months of continuous growth.

And the strangest Google search question was an enquiry into the location of gay saunas in Turkey. Not that His Grace can recall ever writing any such post.

In celebration of his record statistics, and in perpetual commemoration of the spiritual liberation afforded by his own pulpit experience with the Provost of Eton, Dr Henry Cole, His Grace is pleased to host another ‘Cranmer’s Pulpit’ for communicants to raise whatever religio-political or politico-religious concerns they do so wish…

Demographics: Turkey would on present trends be more populous than Germany by 2020, and would have the greatest voting strength in the EU, and thus alter the EU’s character.

It is not really European. Its capital is not in Europe and 95% of its population live outside Europe

Its human rights record

Culturally, it is very different from secular Europe. Interestingly Mr Leigh quotes Col Gaddafi as once claiming “Turkey will be an Islamic Trojan Horse inside the European Union if it is allowed to join the bloc, to the advantage of Al Qaeda terror chief Osama Bin Laden and other extremists”.

Whilst His Grace may have been a little curt, he has had something of a stressful week with hundreds of abusive emails as a result of a campaign of slander against him.

He apologises to Mr Oiznop, and, in answer to his specific question, His Grace does not really want Turkey in the EU at the moment, but would rather prefer the UK to be out in any case, thus rendering his opinion on the matter (and that of Brits) somewhat superfluous.

Your GraceI am sorry to hear that you have had hundreds of abusive emails. I am intrigued. What do they say? Perhaps you can write a post about this one day. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to be abusive towards you. Your popularity is well deserved. You never cease to make me laugh.

Not surprised. I have only started coming here for the last month myself.

Cramer may be one of the most fat headed bloggers on the planet. But he is the only one that can claim to have the brains to fill it with.

The smartest kid in class and the most worthwhile tasting cookie in the cookie jar by far. He makes all of the rest seem like they should be sitting in the corner with a big pointed hat on their heads.

There are, it seems to me, three political styles in Britain: A. Whinging. B. Criticizing. C. Retreating.

The whingers complain all day long about Britain's escalating problems. The criticizers complain all day long about the solutions that the whingers propose. The retreaters run to the exits at the first mention of politics.

Meanwhile the politicians march forward with their amateurish utopianism unopposed. Britain is land where the daft rule over the timid.

It is sad that you have been bullied by those who oppose your views. Bullying by the left-wing ascendancy in the media has been a feature of the last decade and whole areas of political debate , most notably immigration until recently, have been closed down. Right wing blogs have escaped the enforcers of the sole voice of correctness.There are signs that these anti-democratic tactics are now being deployed more forcibly on the Internet.In his post of Saturday, February 23rd, Donal Blaney described, on his blogsite, how a flood of abusive negative comment was making blogging very tedious

Of those who wrote this offensive comment Donal Blaney said "Such is their intellectual insecurity that they will not engage in honest debate and instead they resort to infantile abuse in an attempt to stifle debate. I cannot help but wonder whether these people would not prefer to live in a police state where only certain views (theirs) are allowed to be held because the venom and vitriol that flows when you dare to stand up to them is quite astonishing. It says a hell of a lot about them and their upbringing.

All too often those of us who dare to have a differing worldview will allow themselves to be bullied into submission for fear of being labelled as a racist, homophobic fascist (even David Cameron)."

His Grace needs to be shielded from this assault- possibly by some kind of secretarial antechamber - to afford him the calm to compose his contemplative writings.

If we're going to have government funded faith schools at all (which I wouldn't but that's another question) then I suppose we'd all agree that it's logical for a faith school to discriminate amongst applicants on grounds of, um, faith.

But is it OK for the faith school to ALSO discriminate on the grounds of race or ancestry?

"No" I hear you all cry (or you would if you were paying attention).

Ah, but what if the faith itself is discriminatory. Does faith trump anti-racism?

Here's the story. The Jewish Free School discriminates in favour of children with Jewish-born mothers (of course no-one is born with a religion, so in practice this means children with Jewish maternal-grandmothers) over those without..

Naturally they are being taklen to court by those families who have thus been deemed insufficiently Jewish.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)